Portions of the human body sometimes fail to function properly. Often the cause of the malfunction is limited to a specific area or location, and not the entire malfunctioning portion (e.g., an entire organ, an entire body tract, etc.). It can be unnecessary, wasteful, or even dangerous to treat the entire organ, tract, etc., because healthy and/or properly functioning areas will be treated too. For example, a patient's digestive tract may not be functioning properly, but the cause may only be a small portion of the small intestine. Treating the entire digestive tract, including properly functioning portions, may cause the properly functioning portions (e.g., the entire digestive tract except the small portion of the small intestine) to function improperly. In another example, only certain portions of the bladder may cause an overactive bladder condition, and thus only those portions may require treatment.
Overactive Bladder or OAB is one of the factors that can result in urinary incontinence conditions. OAB is a chronic urological condition characterized broadly as the involuntary and uncontrollable urge felt by a subject to relieve the bladder, leading to abnormally high urinating frequency. Such conditions may occur due to frequent and spontaneous contractions of the detrusor muscle of the pelvic region of a subject.
Overactive bladders often exhibit localized changes in detrusor morphology, likely originating from defects on cellular and multicellular level. Such cell related deviations may be attributed to local pathological changes in the muscle condition or topology that may contribute to anomalies in the functionality of the detrusor muscle on a macroscopic scale. These changes are correlated to the observed local pathological changes in the muscle (e.g. patchy denervation, increased amount of connective tissue between muscle bundles) which may contribute to abnormal function of the detrusor muscle on a macroscopic scale. Moreover, some studies suggest that abnormal activity may originate from one or more distinct anatomical areas of the bladder such as the dome, internal sphincter, or the trigone.
Current solutions for overactive bladder treatment (e.g. systemic drugs, nerve stimulation, and Botox injections) target the abnormal function of the entire bladder and may not specifically address local and anatomical abnormalities, thereby indicating a need for methods and devices capable of identifying and providing therapy to specific areas where local bladder abnormality originates. In addition, current treatments, like Botox injections, need to be repeated as the effect wears off over time. Further, overtreatment with Botox leads to urinary retention which requires self-catheterization in order to void. Similarly, solutions that fail to identify the location of the abnormalities or treat only these specific locations may prolong the therapeutic effect and increase procedure time. As such, existing solutions for OAB may fail to properly address local and anatomical abnormalities of the detrusor muscle, thereby indicating the need for alternative therapies for local bladder abnormalities.
The devices and methods of the current disclosure may rectify some of the deficiencies described above or other deficiencies in the art.